Redemption is here

What a busy week it has been. Praise the Lord on high! {Dustin graduated! I snapped photos and shouted his name like a proud parent this week as he graduated!} God has been plowing through the muck and dirty-dirt in my heart-and doing some crazy stuff. I'm sure you're not surprised. A friend last night reminded me that when we ask God to make us new, he doesn't just heal the bad parts, but he replaces all of it with a whole new heart! He doesn't just go in and do repairs, he transforms our hearts into something brand new-(when we ask he is faithful). It's weird for me to understand that God wants me. I struggle with that a lot. Even when I'm a dirty-ass sinner, he's like, I still like you! It's weird. When people cross me- It's hard for me to want their company, more-less be like, I like you!

His grace is good. He is the King. Period.

The thing this week that has my mind freaking boggled-that I should know by now IS that

he was a little baby (just like Conrad)...

and those little precious, adorable, pure, incredible, flawless, pink hands with little eeny-teeny, incredibly-kissable and munch-able fingers were nailed to wood and hung with the weight of gravity pulling at his flesh as he hung for my transgressions. Those precious baby hands would someday become my sacrifice. The precious hands of Jesus ended up becoming the vary thing that bought me.

WTF? (Yes, I cursed in the same sentence that I said Jesus...deal.) Those hands, that blood, made it possible for me to know God and communicate with him in a real way. It's just weird. With Christmas in the air, I have the birth of Christ fresh in my mind hearing songs about "Oh come Oh COME Emanuel..." {Thank you Jesus for coming} I am thankful that Emanuel means "God with us". That You, that You are with us, and your love doesn't waver-even if my love for others wavers, you still come when I call Your name. {Matt 1:23}

I just really can't fathom the fact that Jesus went through a whole life time, a whole childhood, and young adult hood, and He wrestled with the enemy of our souls, and he lived life like we do and still he absorbed & conquered death and Resurrection- rose from the dead and proved how God he was. It's just really incredible to me. It gives me hope. I don't have to look to the stars or see what the horoscopes say to know that my future is secure-that this life is but a vapor but that life isn't void of hope either. Not because of anything amazing I've done but that...wait for it...wait for it....

His promises are true.

I just feel like lately the cross has bent me to my knees and my heart has been broken. My flesh has been under a microscope-each section of it has crumbled under the weight of the truth that God is alive and was a baby who lived and then died for me. Weird and beautiful on so many levels. I'm being stripped of myself. I'm being lead through a garden with many colors-colors my eyes have yet to see, textures my hands are new to, the contrast of a bright sky against pail virgin clouds. It leaves me awe stricken, naked, and alive. It's humbling and frightening all at once.

So this Christmas my thoughts are this:

Jesus was a baby.

Then he was a man.

Then he bore the sin of the world on himself....

Can I get a mother'f-in AMEN to that?!

Sigh....

So good!

Merry Christmas Friends and family. I love you SO SO much and hope that in this rough economy, you can feel the peace of Christ deep in your bones and your lungs can feel refreshed as you breath a deep breath of fresh air, and you can rest peacefully tonight in your beds knowing that, if shit hits the fan, you are secure in the hands of Christ. More than any gift you receive this year, the biggest gift you could know is the security of who you are in Jesus and the bad ass God that he is.

I love you so much.